Li Qingsong originally thought that after entering a truly "modernized" interstellar battlefield, weapons such as artillery and missiles would have become ineffective.
For example, artillery played an irreplaceable role in the era of gunpowder weapons.
It has great power and a long enough range, making it indispensable.
Not to mention the missiles, which have their own thrust, can fly farther, and can automatically lock onto targets.
But in the age of interstellar wars, they had one unsolvable shortcoming: they were too big and too slow.
The larger the target and the slower it is, the easier it is to intercept.
The new high-speed radar interception system can intercept even small electromagnetic cannon projectiles, not to mention artillery shells that are dozens of centimeters in size and interstellar missiles that are tens of meters in size.
Besides, their speed is not as fast as electromagnetic cannon projectiles. Even interstellar missiles can only reach a speed of several kilometers per second at most.
The shells are slower.
But Li Qingsong discovered that their "ecological niche" in the war system is indispensable.
How to attack long-range, highly mobile and highly defensive targets?
Rely on electromagnetic cannon projectiles to slowly nibble at it?
This is unrealistic.
How to aim for more distant targets?
Apart from interstellar missiles and artillery shells, there are almost no suitable weapons.
Li Qingsong believes that the exposure of this problem is the biggest gain from conducting such a large-scale live-fire combat exercise and consuming so many resources.
Now that the problem has been exposed, we need to find a way to solve it.
How to solve it?
First of all, it is definitely not feasible to still use gunpowder as a propulsion system for artillery shells and interstellar missiles.
In order to make them truly useful in modern interstellar battlefields, they must be accelerated.
Only when the speed is increased can the effectiveness of the interception system be reduced and the probability of breakthrough be increased.
As for the artillery shells, their speed must be at least 25 kilometers per second - faster than the speed of Li Qingsong's fastest electromagnetic cannon projectile at the moment.
For interstellar missiles, their speed must be above 40 kilometers per second to be truly tactically significant.
How can they achieve such high speed?
Li Qingsong conducted extensive experiments and long periods of thinking.
In the end, Li Qingsong made two things clear.
As for the shells, I could probably solve it through the same electromagnetic acceleration method as the electromagnetic cannon projectiles.
That is to say, what was fired before was projectiles with a mass of only a few grams, but now we need to develop electromagnetic guns that can fire projectiles with a mass ranging from several kilograms to tens of kilograms.
As for interstellar missiles...
It is too big to be fired with an electromagnetic gun. In this case, we should follow the previous idea and try to install a secondary booster inside the missile so that it can also have a sufficiently efficient propulsion capability!
Based on these two ideas, Li Qingsong immediately began his research.
Finally, after a year of continuous research, a new type of electromagnetic gun was born.
The barrel of this electromagnetic gun is about 30 meters long and 30 centimeters in diameter.
The corresponding projectile is a small rocket-style shell about 50 cm long and 10 cm in diameter.
The maximum muzzle velocity of this type of artillery shell can reach about 25 kilometers per second, which just meets Li Qingsong's previous requirements.
This is possible because the rocket itself is large enough and has a large enough force-bearing area.
After being launched, it still has a certain amount of self-power.
Adopting chemical propulsion mode - Li Qingsong really couldn't install the secondary pressurization propulsion module in such a small shell, so he could only adopt chemical propulsion mode. It can also adjust its course in a smaller range after being launched to track the target more accurately.
The total mass of such a shell is 10KG, with 2KG of chemical propellant stored inside and 2KG of warhead charge, and the rest is the weight of its own equipment.
In order to match the lethality of this shell, Li Qingsong specially developed a new type of high explosive.
Using azide as a precursor, Li Qingsong generated all-nitrogen anions through chemical reactions in a high-pressure environment equivalent to tens of thousands of times the Earth's atmospheric pressure. Through a series of crystallization and extraction methods, Li Qingsong finally produced this high explosive.
All nitrogen anion salt!
Because it contains many high-energy nitrogen-nitrogen chemical bonds, this type of explosive has an extremely high energy density, and its explosive power can even be more than ten times that of TNT!
Once this 2KG of all-nitrogen anion salt is detonated, the energy it releases will be over 80,000 kilojoules, which is more than a hundred times that of the most powerful electromagnetic cannon projectile.
But that's not all its lethality.
In addition to the extremely powerful warhead charge, it also possesses powerful kinetic energy due to its extremely high speed.
Even if all the fuel is used up and the mass is reduced to 8KG, at a speed of 25 kilometers per second, its kinetic energy is still over billion joules, which is more powerful than dynamite.
If such energy can hit the vital part of a warship, a single shot can destroy the entire warship!
Even if it doesn't hit a fatal part, one shot can cause serious damage to the warship.
Although the power is so great, the energy loss of launching such a shell is also extremely high, consuming about 2,000 degrees of electricity.
Moreover, these 2000 degrees of electricity must be released in just a few tenths of a second.
Fortunately, Li Qingsong’s spacecraft are now all equipped with fission reactors as energy sources, so they can support such a huge amount of electricity consumption.
"The previous electromagnetic cannon that fired projectiles was actually more similar to firearms in the era of firearms from an ecological perspective. It should not be called an electromagnetic cannon, but an electromagnetic gun.
However, in the human era, people have already agreed to call it that, and I was influenced by it and named it the electromagnetic gun. Now, this real electromagnetic gun can only be renamed, and I will call it the electromagnetic gun."
At this moment, the electromagnetic gun was successfully developed, and Li Qingsong immediately began to change the design drawings of the warship to incorporate the electromagnetic gun into it.
Because the electromagnetic gun is too large, it cannot be installed on a Mercury-class battleship. It will require at least a Venus-class battleship to accommodate it.
However, the Mercury-class battleship is positioned as a small-mass target and does not need such a powerful weapon.
As for how to integrate the electromagnetic cannon into the Venus-class battleship as perfectly as possible to give it greater lethality and reliability, although Li Qingsong has dozens of plans, he does not know which one is the best yet.
But it doesn’t matter. We can build some gold-class battleships for each plan and let them actually fight on the battlefield. Then we will know which plan is the best!
After completing the research and development of the electromagnetic gun, Li Qingsong once again turned his attention to another extremely important weapon.
A new type of interstellar missile!
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